Outside impressions

I was talking to a friend...I AM talking with a friend tonight...and I am trying to engage him in a discussion about our mutual lack of direction. However, he has informed me that Scotland, and a masters, most definitively counts as a direction. So apparently, despite how rudderless I may feel about this future, it is reading as a choice and a decision to others.

Which may be why I'm not encountering the sympathy I expect when I describe my future as something that is happening TO me, rather than something I'm doing FOR me. Maybe I need to actually own this decision instead of continuing to bitch about it. This might be what people mean when they talk about being a grown-up.

Incidentally, I've been looking forward to being a grown-up for my entire life, and what I'm beginning to realize is that being a grown-up might just mean subjugating your feelings for a greater or more logical good. Which sucks.

So the only conclusion I can come to is that I'm either doing adulthood wrong, or I haven't gotten there yet. Because if adulthood is exactly what I've experienced thus far, then it makes no sense that the human race has continued to exist. I would kill myself if I knew I had already achieved everything that I can hope to from this stage of life.

There's a group of people here who come to every fair and parade and public outing, asking people to sign petitions to assist with the voluntary extinction of the human race. I wonder, maybe they would have more luck if they didn't resort to talking about excessive use of resources and what humans do to the planet, but just asked "What are you expecting your progeny to live for?"

Because what answer is there? Either you expect their lives to be better, which makes you some kind of martyr (and how is that possible, that an entire generation of unhappy people can produce a happy one?) or, you have no expectation that things will be better for your child and so you are knowingly bringing another unfulfilled person into the world. And for what? The closest I've come to wanting a child is when I've been searching for someone to pay attention to me. Really, what I want is an audience with built-in approval, and is that worth imparting life?

Ugh, I'm just trying to be deep while I wait for the booze to work it's way out of my system. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm drunk again.

Maybe not now. Earlier, definitely. I've begun to realize that I use alcohol as a way to loosen myself up to the point where I can express what I really feel...but then I don't drink enough to express myself to the people who need to hear it. Not that there are many of those; most of my issues are with myself, and lord knows there is a surfeit of conversation there. Surfeit of feelings, too.

Ugghhhhhh, I'm sorry. I promise, to whomever ends up reading this thing, I will stop with the angst. It's just, right now this is where I am and I almost feel that brain-dumping all of this is a better way to explain why I'm going back to school than trying to explain it would be. I mean, who can live with this sort of thought process? Even if school is only an over-priced distraction—Sesame Street for scholars—maybe it will break me out of the loop long enough to figure out what the real problem, and the real solution, might be.

I should probably put this to bed. I've achieved enough sobriety to feel confident that the room won't spin when I lie down, which is my usual yardstick. And I've probably already opened myself up to enough criticism from imaginary parties.

Until my next attack of false sagacity or intoxication...